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Prologue
Analise
My name is Analise, and I’m a wolf shifter. Not that you’d know it to look at me. None of us wear a T-shirt that saysWant a Bite?Also, we don’t bite people, under ordinary circumstances, although most of my pack enjoys hunting for small-to-medium prey, and a few enjoy larger types.
I’m not much of a hunter. My wolf and I prefer burgers and fries to stringy squirrel meat with fur that gets caught in our teeth. And fish and chips to raw salmon or trout. Not that we get fast food often, since we live so far out in the countryside, even the school bus doesn’t come here. And there is no Internet. Which means we’re all home schooled in a lax way using out-of-date workbooks and whatever the adults can mail order. Most of us can read and write and do basic sums. Few can do more. Our elders, led by our alpha, are hidebound and traditional.
Which is why I woke up to a horror show on my twentieth birthday.
“Analise, get dressed, it’s time!” My stepmother bustled into my room, followed by several of the other women of the pack. They all wore long dresses and full makeup, hair styled atop their heads as if for a formal occasion. What fresh hell was this? She snapped my blinds open, admitting rays of early sunlight.
I yanked a pillow over my eyes. “Time for what?” Even in our pack, where hard work was the way of things, we got our birthdays off. And I had plans for the day—to shift and chill in the forest alone. “What do you want?”
“Analise, get up. Everyone is waiting.” She jerked the pillow away and glared at me. “For once, don’t be a selfish princess. What will your father say?”
“About what?” I was so confused and even more annoyed. My stepmother rarely acknowledged me at all unless she wanted something from me. Like work. Or money. Something I had a little of, thanks to my late mother. “Cyndra, go away. It’s my birthday.”
“Exactly. And your wedding day. So get up and let’s get you ready for a day all about you. That should make you happy, you selfish thing.”
Not happy at all. Enraged, terrified, shocked, unhappy… “I’m not getting married today or any other day. At least, not until I meet my mate. The one I choose. You’re insane.”
The gleam in her eye told me otherwise. “Your father has gone to a great deal of trouble to make this arrangement. It benefits both packs and creates a valuable alliance. I never believed you’d come to any good, but I was proven wrong.” She stepped back and placed her hands on her hips. “Now, dress! It’s about time you were mated and out of my house.”
Her house? “It’s my father’s house, and the home where he and my mother lived. He was kind while she was here, but losing her made him mean. And you’re perfect for each other now.”
“You little bitch.” She drew a hand back, as if to slap me, but I tipped my chin up.
I climbed out of bed, with no idea what to do. “I’m going to bathe.”
She followed me in before I could close the door.
“I’m not going out the window,” I protested, but she sat on the closed toilet lid and crossed her legs.
“No, you’re not. Go ahead and shower or bathe. I’ll wait.”
Nudity among shifters is not a big deal. After all, if we don’t want to destroy our clothing, we have to take it off prior to the shift, often in a group of others. But I’d be damned if I’d strip naked here while she sat in watchful judgment.
“No, thank you. I’m not feeling all that dirty.”
“You can’t get married dirty!” she protested, as if she had standards about a wedding I had no say in. “Bathe right now. You’ll shame us all.”
“Good. You have reason to be ashamed, with what you’re doing to me. You and the alpha.” I’d stopped calling him Dad years ago. When he stopped being one. It was Alpha or Father, depending on my mood and his behavior. “Now, what am I supposed to wear to this parody of a mating?”
I followed Cyndra back into my bedroom where her minions had laid out a white dress, human style, complete with veil. “Is that the one you wore when you mated my father?” Cyndra had always had an odd interest in human customs, something the alpha chose to ignore. “I don’t want to wear your hand-me-downs.”
“The alpha wants you in a white dress. He’s assured your new mate’s father that you’re pure as the driven snow. Funny, isn’t it?” I wanted to smack that sneer off her face.
“Not funny, no.” Or untrue. I’d been sheltered and ignored by turns but never allowed to date anyone and, therefore, was pretty dang pure. My plan to run alone in the forest today was to be the first time ever. I even had permission. From the alpha.
He’d said, “Of course, you’ll be grown up on that date and ready to take on pack responsibilities. Privilege comes along with them.”
I should have known to read between the lines. He never gave without getting something in return for the pack or himself or both. But he’d never been cruel to me before. Neglectful, yes. But not cruel.
Now I was standing at the center of a group of fussing females who were styling my hair and gooping makeup all over my face, and lacing me into a white dress with a long train and a veil. Where was my mother’s dress? The blue one with the tiny flowers. This one made me want to claw my way out of it. The day Cyndra wore it, my father changed forever.
And now he was giving me away. No, not giving. Trading me for something. A “valuable alliance.”
